Attorneys for Uber worked Thursday morning to convince a federal judge that a case brought by rival Waymo over the alleged theft of trade secrets from the company should be dealt with in arbitration and not in a public trial, the latest twist in the high-stakes legal battle over the future of autonomous cars.

Uber argued inside a federal courtroom in San Francisco today that Waymo’s claims relate to Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski, who it says committed the theft while still a Google employee (Google parent Alphabet Inc. owns Waymo), making the issue a violation of his contract and therefore a matter to be resolved through private arbitration. Waymo, created last year to commercialize Google’s robotic car software and hardware, insisted that’s not the basis of its suit.

“We are are suing a third-party competitor… about independent things they have done,” said attorney Charles Verhoeven, arguing on behalf of Waymo. “Sure, he might be part of it, but … we are not relying on the employee agreement.”

At stake is Uber’s ability to push forward with its own autonomous vehicle program, an area in which Google faces fierce competition despite having more than a seven-year head start. On May 3 the judge in the case is also scheduled to decide whether to grant Waymo’s request for a temporary injunction that would effectively halt Uber’s R&D efforts and specifically bar Levandowski’s involvement in the program. A possible trial in the case looms this summer -- if the matter isn’t sent to arbitration first.

Attorneys for both sides have not been timid in describing the ramifications of the lawsuit. "This is not your garden variety trade secrets case," lawyers for Uber said in court papers earlier this week arguing for the deposition of Google cofounder Larry Page over alleged conversations he had with Levandowski (the court denied Uber's request). "This is a case that involves potentially what may be the most lucrative business in history."

The battle began in February when Waymo learned that Uber appeared to be developing a laser LiDAR sensor circuit identical to one of Google’s own design. Waymo’s lawsuit detailed how Levandowski had downloaded more than 14,000 documents, including thousands related to LiDAR, from an internal Google server and transferred the data to a personal drive about six weeks before he resigned from its self-driving car project in late 2015.

The rear window of a Waymo driverless car during at a Google event in San Francisco.

AP Photo/Eric Risberg

In January 2016, Levandowski started his own company, Otto, with a goal of creating self-driving commercial trucks. In August 2016, Uber bought Otto for about $680 million, and put Levandowski in charge of its driverless car research efforts. Waymo has also alleged that Levandowski had been in secret talks with Uber about the acquisition even before he left Google to form Otto.

Despite repeated requests from Waymo and the court, Levandowski and Uber haven’t yet returned the files at issue or provided an “unredacted” privilege log related to the matter. Levandowski, who is not a defendant in the case, has sought to exercise his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to prevent turning over an unredacted log. That request was denied by a federal appeals court this week, after it was initially rejected by the district court.

Both Uber and Google, like most big Silicon Valley firms, prefer to handle employee disputes through arbitration. Uber’s attorney Arturo González pointed this out, saying it was “unfair for Google to try and have it both ways.”

“This case is clearly a dispute…regarding conduct with Levandowski. And yet they want to go to court against Uber,” Gonzalez said Thursday. “Uber hired Levandowski. The unfairness to Levandowski is also an unfairness to Uber.”

Judge William Alsup picked up on the irony as well, telling Waymo’s Verhoeven that Google “wants to force everyone into arbitration, and sets the broadest arbitration agreements you can. And now… you’re scrambling” to show why that shouldn’t be the case with Levandowski. Verhoeven countered, saying for at least the third time during the brief hearing that Waymo was not relying on Levandowski's employment agreement to bring its case against Uber.

LiDAR is a laser radar sensor system that generates 3-D, high-definition images in 360-degrees around a vehicle. It’s considered vital technology for safe, reliable autonomous cars.

The LiDAR mapping display in Uber's self-driving Ford Fusion.

Uber

The cost of LiDAR units has plunged from tens of thousands of dollars a few years ago to a few thousand currently. Suppliers including Velodyne and Quanergy want to reduce that cost to a few hundred dollars or less within the next few three years.

Levandowski was a star in the self-driving car world for years. He joined Google in 2007, after helping Stanford University’s DARPA Challenge team with its autonomous vehicles, and was a core member of the Google self-driving car project from its inception, working with original team leader Sebastian Thrun and Chris Urmson.